Unusual Angles on History

Scott Sumner:

Younger blog readers who rely heavily on the NYT for  information might be under the impression that the 1980s tax cuts for the rich were enacted due to the evil Republicans.  Actually, almost every single developed country cut its top MTR during the 1980s and 1990s.  And liberal Democrats in America also supported the cuts.  The past is another country—you had to be there to understand.

This is called not getting the memo. Public opinion is at best deeply split on the reduced progressivity of the tax code, and so it is deemed necessary to pretend the Democrats provide an alternative. Pointing out that they're not only goes to show that they haven't been a representative of the Left in decades. Of course, this has nothing to do with "trying to help the country," but it's Sumner's job to pretend it is, so whatever.

Come to think of it, Sumner's schtick is precisely to not get the memo, as it were. That's the source of his aura of right-wing principled independence, which verges on a kind of technocratic political incoherence.